Sunday March 28, 2010

First off I want to apologize for writing the last two posts at a second grade reading level. I was totally exhausted and could barely sift through the photos let alone say anything interesting or informative. Sorry! Although I was able to lure in another “reader” because of the primitive nature of the posts. (Yes, Rich is finally reading my blog. Let’s work on Chris now. He just does it to piss me off.)

We woke up at the butt crack of dawn again to catch our Frontier Photographic Safari tour bus to the Blue Mountains. Sam, the landscape photographer driver was picking us up and 4 other people to go on a semi-private tour. You know I like to do things my way and when I inquired about a private tour it was too much money.  The woman I was corresponding with promised it would only be 8 of us so we went with them. Wrong. There were 11. Ok, I am not going to make a big deal out of this. No worries.

Our first stop was at Featherdale Wildlife Park where we could interact and touch kangaroos, wallabies and emus. Check out this baby wallaby (or maybe a relative of the wallaby…. I dunno 818 and I keep arguing about our marsupial viewing. He is probably right)

It was early enough in the day that they were still hungry and very friendly to us. We weren’t able to pick them up, but we could feed them and pet them.

For example, I thought this was a small kangaroo, but 818 says it’s a wallaby. How ridiculous that I come to this place and cannot even identify my animals…. anyone? back me up here.

Hilarious, he is doing self portraits with it.

And probably the single cutest photo I have taken in a long time…

I have this really cool wide angle video adaptor lens thingy and it looks like a true fish eye lens. The interesting part is that you have to get really really close to the subject, and kangaroos like to punch. Unfortunately (fortunately?) I was not punched in the face by a kangaroo, although that would have been the greatest story ever. There was a Nikon ad years ago with a black and white photo of a guy up close to a kangaroo who was punching him and his camera went flying: Nikon tip #47 when photographing nature, try a zoom lens. I desperately wanted that to come true for me.

I love this picture!

I mean seriously, is this not the funniest thing ever? Look at his little tongue! OMG Is that going to stop me from eating him tomorrow night? Absolutely not. There are 50 million of them in Australia, they can afford to lose a few to my belly.

We picked up another passenger at the wildlife park bringing out passenger count to 1/3 more people than I was promised. Ok, no worries.

We trekked on to the Blue Mountains and got out to take a brief 10 minute walk when we started approaching 2000 or 2500 feet.

Sam tried to get us to play his didgeridoo but no one was really interested in putting their mouth on his nasty wooden noisemaker after God knows how many others have done the same thing so we declined. One brave American woman played the thing. And it sounded nothing like it was supposed to.

After our mini hike we went to Mount Tomah for what was promised to be an amazing lunch with a beautiful view of the mountain range and then a quick walk around their botanical gardens. We all ordered the barramundi and we were all highly disappointed. The highlight of lunch was the cheap wine they served.

After lunch we went to see Govett’s Leap, the Australia version of the Grand Canyon, but much greener.

Then we went to the area where the famous Three Sisters are… We rode a tram down into the valley which was at a FIFTY TWO DEGREE ANGLE! holy shit it was steep! I was so frazzled on the way down I couldn’t even manage a clear picture.

After our sightseeing we had a long drive back to the city where Sam sang along with ancient Australian folk songs and made us listen to an Aboriginal tell stories. None of us were really that enthusiastic about any of that and I think about 75% of the bus was asleep within a half hour. So despite the fact that our itinerary said “Hotel pick-up and return” we were dumped off at the Sydney Olympic park and were told to find our way back to the city. I was like, ummm… dude sorry we didn’t play your fucking didgeridoo thingy, but aren’t you being a little lazy by not driving us back to the hotel? This tour was not something I would recommend. Especially since it was a “photographic” tour… he gave us about 10 minutes at each spot. Someone like me likes to take in the whole scene and might need a few more minutes to soak it in while shooting. Lame.

We had a beer at a outdoor cafe near Cockle Bay and then headed off to a 47th floor rotating restaurant called The Summit. Apparently the executive chef is named Michael Moore, not to be confused with the sensationalist director we love to hate. My brother was less than thrilled at not understanding the over priced 2 course menu for $79 and not knowing what his options were or what the menu items were. It’s all good, though, he’s learning how to live, too

I had the crudo and tartare appetizer: the salmon toro was kind of bland (the one on the left) but the other thing… was pretty tasty. It was thinly sliced salmon and had some roe on it and a bunch of little hot peppers that I had to pick off, of course.

For my entree I had the John Dory (my new favorite white fish and I order wherever I can. It’s very light and not fishy at all) It came with ravioli thingys stuffed with crab. (Slightly over salted but still good.)

And lastly, before we left Sydney I was bound and determined to get the Opera House from every possible angle in every possible lighting situation. Being that the place was rotating I was forced to crawl on the floor and set up the camera on a mini tripod on the base of the restaurant that was NOT rotating. It was quite a sight, but I have this gem to show for it.

On another note, I received a tweet from Jarin requesting some “facedowns” while I am on this trip. I am pretty sure I can make this happen and you know I love a good goofy photo-op!